


Stories Told To Me, Stories Told To You

by SOMETHINREAL



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Drinking, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Theft, but it's soft i promise, in a weird way, story telling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 00:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14437680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SOMETHINREAL/pseuds/SOMETHINREAL
Summary: “You change the story every time,” Jae huffs, grinning up at Brian, who only grins back.“Yeah,” he says, “well, I like my version better.”(alternatively: the one where jae and brian are reminiscing on the stupid shit they do together).





	Stories Told To Me, Stories Told To You

**Author's Note:**

> this is H E A V I L Y based off of the mv for glory by bastille which is a killer band and a very cool video if you want to check that out. if it's confusing, what's in present tense is the things that are happening now and what's in past is the things that they've done/encountered that they're bringing up and talking about (it's really fucking self explanatory slksjdflkslk) also please ignore any mistakes ! i'll edit this tomorrow or the day after alsoooo all of the towns aren't real okay i just made them up

The summer air is warm against their skin, the perfect temperature to be skin to skin and not uncomfortable. The moon is high in the sky, and a few stars can be seen further off, mainly washed away by the city they’ve left behind thim. They’re on the hood of the latest car they’d traded in at the used car lot for the one they’d nicked off of some unsuspecting victim, passing a brown-bagged bottle of bourbon between them as they talk. A plane flies over them, the third since they’d climbed up on the hood, definitely not the last they’ll see.

“What about that dingy dive bar in that weird town with the graffiti covering its name on the sign?”

Jae’s in a muscle shirt, warm skin pressed against where the sleeves of Brian’s t-shirt rides up on his biceps. Their shoes are in the backseat on the car. Their fingers are intertwined.

“They served cool drinks. And their fries were pretty good.”

“Hmm,” Brian hums, “overcooked, but yeah, you’re right.”

 

They’d been walking for miles, opting out on taking the motorbike Brian had stolen from some lot, deciding that there was less of a chance they could trace it back to them if it wasn’t anywhere near their current location. Their feet were killing them, but they saw a sign up ahead for _Billy’s Dive Bar - Homestyle Fries and Drinks_ , and thought, why the fuck not?

It was just about as dingy as they came, peeling walls, faded fluorescent lights, people that looked as though they might skin Brian and Jae alive, but they had fries and whiskey and were playing Britney’s _Baby One More Time_ from a jukebox in the corner. How bad could things possibly get?

They weren’t really runaways, because they were both adults and they both had money saved up from shitty jobs and trust funds that their parents had set them up as teenagers, but they never quite liked staying in one place at a time and figured that life was short enough as it was, why not live a little more? They drank too much and crashed dive bars and nicked things from strangers, but they were young and carefree and Brian was busy playing pool with a man missing an eye and Jae was now very tipsy and dancing on a table to _Gangsta’s Paradise_ in a horrid green sweater that he definitely hadn’t been wearing before they walked in together.

 

“--It was hot pink,” Jae interjects, pulling the bottle from Brian’s hands and taking a sip, the alcohol stinging his throat so sweet. Brian grins.

 

Brian couldn’t keep his eyes off of Jae. It was funny, mostly, how he was swinging his hips rhythmically to a song that definitely shouldn’t have been danced to in that way, but he was doing especially good for someone who could never dance without tedious instruction. He couldn’t decide whether Jae was making it hard for him to focus on his game because he looked ridiculous in the hot pink granny sweater or because the sway of his hips was almost as intoxicating as the straight whiskey Brian was fisting, but he knew than the man with the glass eye was tapping his foot impatiently for Brian to play his turn.

He lined up with his shot, squinting one eye. Brian shot, sank the eight-ball. The five bucks was shoved into his hands reluctantly, and it was only five bucks, but it meant another round of drinks, so Brian had been grateful. By the way Jae was still dancing up on the table (was this even allowed?), he looked like he didn’t need any more drinks in him. Maybe that was just Jae, maybe it wasn’t even the alcohol, it was just Jae letting loose for once, unravelling the tightly wound chord, stepping outside of his comfort zone.

Regular Jae would never have done this. Regular Jae was quiet, kept low, often had his head buried in a book, headphones in, eyes downcast, keeping close to Brian’s side. Regular Jae was Introvert Jae. But this, this wasn’t Regular Jae. This was Extrovert, Party Jae. Brian only ever got to see this Jae once in a blue moon. Extrovert Jae didn’t have a comfort zone. Brian liked seeing him live a little, even if a little alcoholic pushing was needed.

Brian was sat at the bar when somethings glinted out of the corner of his eye, shining dully in the lowlight, something small and metal. A pair of keys. A pair of unattended keys. To what appears to be an old Mercedes. Fucking _score_. Without much thinking, Brian pocketed them, threw the five on the counter for the drinks he’d never actually bothered with drinking and taking to Jae, who was now sitting with a group of people that definitely looked like they could murder them and get away with it.

“Jae,” he said once he’d reached him. He tugged insistently at the hem of Jae’s horrendous sweater, urging him away from the groups of mildly threatening people.

“Already?”

“Yeah,” he said, “come on. Hurry.”

They stole the car.

 

“We _borrowed_ that car,” Brian cuts in. And the car’s still borrowed. They’re laying on the hood of it holding hands with no intent of ever returning it.

“Why steal such a shit car?” Jae asks, handing the bourbon back to Brian.

“It’s a classic!” Brian exclaims, tapping the hood of the old Mercedes with a socked toe.

“Yeah, okay but what about when we skinny dipped in that lake?”

 

The moon was shining brightly against the water, how they’d found the place, they had no clue. Out on a night time walk by the ravine even though they knew they’d probably get mauled by bears, driving past the sign that read **_PLIARD LAKE: ONE MILE_** , simply stumbling upon in on their many rendezvous, whatever. It was Jae’s idea to go in. They didn’t have any swimsuits, not really having packed for the off chance; all they had were pants and t-shirts and hoodies and boxers and the odd sock, no swim shorts in sight. Jae was also the one who posed the question: _Why not just skinny dip, dearest BriBri?_

 

“Um, that was _you_ who skinny dipped. I can’t even believe that. Your stupid pasty ass lit up the fucking clearing like the sun.” Jae hits Brian in the chest.

“I’m sorry that I don’t tan naked, Kang. I don’t tan at all. I burn.”

“You swim naked though,” Brian points out.

“Only with you,” Jae responds. Brian’s grin never falters.

 

Brian went into the water in his boxers; Jae as nude as the day he was born. They ran in together, hand in hand, dove in, shook out their hair in each other’s faces. Brian pressed his lips all over Jae’s face; the tip of his nose, the crease between his eyebrows, each eyelid. Jae’s glasses were on top of the pile of their clothes. They kissed under the moonlight, bodies warming up bodies in the cool water, flesh against flesh, heat to heat. Brian ran out to the car and grabbed the towels he knew he’d thrown into the trunk from the motel, brought them to Jae when he began to shiver, fucked him slow in the backseat in the name of _warming him up._ They were off again.

Brian drove them into another town, got gas (eighty cents a litre! Brian loved this whole small town thing), bought some more snacks, alongside a hat that read _I Love Norton_ , which was funny to him because of the fact that the town had its own merchandise but a population of 153. Jae insisted that they take some guy named something that Brian can’t remember, like Bob or Bruce or maybe James to wherever he needed to go, which, coincidentally, was on the way to where they were not-so planning on going. They were off again after that. So long, Norton, hello, Queenston.

 

“Remember when you got us into a fight?”

 

The club lights were dark, nothing unusual, Brian was nursing a White Russian, Jae cherry vodka on the rocks, they were sitting close but not too close. They knew these small towns and their openness. Someone bumped into them then, and Brian was about to curse them out, because they’d just made him spill his ten dollar drink down the front of his shirt and now he was wet and uncomfortable and kind of sticky, but when he turned around and saw what they were dealing with, he felt incredibly small. There were three men, covered in tattoos with matching bandanas and leather jackets, mildly impressive facial hair and probably the strength to bench press Jae and Brian _simultaneously_.

“Watch were the fuck you’re going,” the one grunted, gruff and gravelly, and Brian fucking scoffed, because the last time he checked, he was the one with a drink spilled down his chest.

 

“I’ll have you know, I got us _out_ of that fight. And the guys wanted to dance after anyways.”

 

“Hey, fellas,” Jae said, trying his best to make himself look small and innocent by pushing up his glasses with a sweater sleeve covered hand and smiling timidly. “We’re awfully sorry about being in your way.” Even though they weren’t. And they weren’t sorry. About any of it. “We don’t want to cause any trouble, we’re just here to dance and have a good time as we’re passing through.”

“You dance?” one of them asked. Brian shook his head no at the same time Jae nodded his head yes. The music playing over the speakers was something that Brian and Jae had heard many times before, something about colours like dreams, red, gold, and green. “We’ll then get out on the dance floor.”

Brian didn’t think that he had much of a choice.

For a group of bikers that looked like they ate nails for fun, they guys were surprising good dancers and an awfully good time. The youngest one _did_ try to dance with Jae, which Brian was absolutely _not_ having, but Jae looked like he was having fun jumping around to the eighties mix, so he digressed. They danced with the bikers until their legs burned and they could hardly move a muscle. In the end, the guys bought them all a round of drinks before they left Queenston, off to Willowswood.

 

“And when you threw out your phone?”

 

The sky was dark, they were driving through a tunnel, blasting some indie music from Jae’s ipod that both of them knew the words to, screaming along. Jae had his head out the window, his hair blowing around with the wind. Brian had one hand on the wheel, the other sticking out of the car, fingers cutting through the strong breeze. He reached into his pocket for his shit phone, threw it out the window. Jae looked at him confusedly, eyes comically wide. Brian just shrugged.

“Don’t need it,” he explained. Jae laughed. His foot pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The road was dead for miles, all their own. They only had to pull over to kiss twice.

“So I was thinking,” Jae said in the morning. He was laying between Brian’s hips in the back seat. They’d pulled over at three to catch some shuteye, slept in the cramped backseat of the car, opting out of wasting their money on a motel for the night, deciding that they’d save that for later, for a treat.

“You were thinking,” Brian echoed, running his fingers through Jae’s hair, messy and tangled from sleep and the wind the night prior.

“That we should do this forever.”

Brian hummed. “I’d love that, babe, but unfortunately we’re gonna have to find a job to make some money eventually. We’re already down to a couple thousand.”

“No, no,” Jae said. “Hypothetically. Like, realistically I know that we’re going to have to go back so we can make money somehow. But in a hypothetical universe where we don’t have to worry about money and we can just be free and living, you know? I love this. I love being with you, not giving a shit about anything, fucking in places we shouldn’t, crashing dive bars, hopping fences, stealing shit from strangers, you know, the good shit. I don’t want to go back. I hate it back there.”

“Well,” Brian started, “we could always stay in a town for a while, make some money. Then we could leave again. There’s so many places we haven’t been. We have the whole country to explore.”

“Brian, you’re a fucking _genius_ ,” Jae said, digging his chin into Brian’s clavicle to show his approval.

 

“You totally didn’t want to do that dance class,” Jae says, elbowing insistently at Brian’s rib cage.

 

Of all of the places they could have found themselves on their trip, a salsa class was not one of them. The music was loud, upbeat, clave tapping out a beat, trumpet setting the rhythm. The instructor, a small lady no older than thirty, let them join her class of women over the age of forty free of cost. They stuck out like a sore thumb.

 

“I have no idea what you’re on about. I _totally_ outdanced you.”

 

Brian picked up the steps easily, dig the heel, swivel the hips, cross, cross, do it all again to the back, repeat, but Jae on the other hand, looked like a fish out of water. He had the steps, sure, but he would go too fast or too slow, off beat, the usual. Maybe he needed a little _more_ than tedious instruction. It was funny though, the two of them, Brian in his KISS t-shirt and denim jacket, black hair neat, or, stylishly messy, Jae in his flannel atop a hoodie, blond hair messy just because it was slept on and he didn’t care to try and fix it in the rearview. They stood out horribly against the women in their bright exercise clothes, two alternative kids with no rhythm dancing with a group of ladies who could probably beat them in a dance battle if they wanted to.

Brian threw his arms around Jae’s shoulders before they left, waving to the instructor, Monica, hopping back into their stolen car, now with different plates so that they wouldn’t be tracked, left Willowswood, made for the desert.

 

“But you fell asleep through all the good bits,” Brian says, nudging Jae back with his foot.

 

Brian’s hands were planted firmly on the wheel, music set on low, desert road ahead of him for miles. There were mountains in the distance, the sun setting behind them, sky coloured with orange, red, purple. The setting sun caused a golden glow to set over them, warming Brian’s skin. He turned to look at Jae, but Jae’s eyes were closed, head tipped back against the seat, lips parted, breath coming out steadily. Brian grinned at him, took his hand, eased on the pedal.

There were animals in the distance, Brian could see them, some kind of deer, birds flying overhead. A literal fucking tumbleweed rolled across the road in front of their car, like all of those western movies Brian had watched as a kid. Jae didn’t wake up until he’d pulled into the parking lot of another dingy club, grinning as he suggested: _Drinks?_

“Not that one sunset,” Jae says, “with the purples and oranges?”

“I remember it being all blues and pinks.”

 

The sky was a mix of colours that they couldn’t begin to name. They were sat together on the sandy desert ground, a blanket wrapped around them wrapped in each other to keep them from the night time cold. Jae was wearing one of Brian’s hoodies, head on Brian’s shoulder, eyes train to the sky above them, in front of them, surrounding them.

“I love you,” Jae told him, words slightly muffled by where he was pressed into Brian’s neck.

“I love you too,” Brian said without hesitation. “What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Jae said, “I haven’t told you in awhile and I thought that you should know.”

“Well in that case,” he said, “I love you so much more than I could ever put into words.”

“Fucking sap,” Jae scoffed. “Ditto.”

 

“You change the story every time,” Jae huffs, grinning up at Brian, who only grins back.

“Yeah,” he says, “well, I like my version better.”

Above them, a plane flies overhead.

**Author's Note:**

> twt


End file.
